Thread: Sweet Gum Balls

It's not a bad looking tree, it's the litter. I slip on them, they get stuck in the belt pulleys, and make a huge mess to clean-up.

I have had about a dozen or so sweet gum trees in my yard for a little over 35 years. They are decent looking trees, but in addition to the pesky "balls", the tops of the trees die and fall on a regular basis. You have to remember not to park anything under them that you don't want crushed, because the tops that fall are 4 to 6 inches in diameter and 6 to 8 ft long.

I'm not aware of anything you can do to prevent this, from what I understand it's just a trait of that particular type of tree.